


There is Another

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: halfamoon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia Skywalker is catapulted into events between the Rebellion and the Empire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is Another

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Beginning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/412565) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



Life on Tatooine had imprinted many lessons on Leia Skywalker. Hard work didn't always payoff, and selling your morals generally got you dead, sooner rather than later, unless you were able to be the top of the garbage pile.

She was beginning to challenge those lessons, though, as she worked on the skills Obi-Wan was trying to impart on her as they headed for Alderaan. It wasn't the Imperial Academy, it wasn't a move toward the Civil Corp, and it wasn't the dead end of a moisture farm, but it was something.

Obi-Wan held his virtues close, letting others think of him a batty old man, a relic of lost days when mystic forces helped control the Republic's safety. Life on Tatooine had told her that such safety had never existed, outside the Core Worlds. She was willing to bet it had been an illusion there too.

Han, on the other hand, admitted to being the full-on scoundrel that was expected in the lower echelons of a Hutt empire. Yet even he had his uses and skills. Chewbacca, his companion, seemed to be more scrupulous, while Artoo… well, Leia was learning even droids had their own sense of duty.

++++

A cell block rescue was not what Leia first thought she would risk her neck on. She'd seen Beru and Owen. She had seen the Jawas. She knew what Imperial stormtroopers could do. 

The prince -- or senator as Leia preferred the earned title to the inherited one -- that had implored Obi-Wan's help, the one that had struck such a melancholic chord in her, was scheduled for termination. And she made up her mind that was not going to happen.

"Han, we're going to impersonate the termination crew and get him out of there. Chewbacca's too tall to pass for a stormtrooper--"

"And you're too short, farmgirl," he shot back.

"-- but I bet he can mug an officer quite nicely, if Threepio lures one in here," she continued, unphased. "You as an officer, me in the Trooper armor, and we go get this Luke Organa out of the cell he's in."

"It will never work," Han said pessimistically.

"I think it will," she told him stubbornly, thinking over that incident in Mos Eisley. Obi-Wan had made that squad leader think the droids were not the ones they needed. That had to be the Force.

"Standard Imperial procedure would be a full squad and an officer," Han protested.

"Not if they want to keep it quiet that they are killing a political prisoner," she answered.

"They just blew up a planet!" he rebutted.

"And that probably started anyone thinking of mutiny to thinking about it harder," Leia reasoned. "We can do this."

Han looked at Chewie, who gave a half-hearted rawr and shrug, before Leia turned to Threepio to coach him on how to get an officer in with them.

+++++

When they got to the cell block, Leia realized there was a stumbling block in place she hadn't considered. She had to be the one to speak, if her hunch on using Obi-Wan Kenobi's trick was correct. Han was notably nervous; between that and his familiarity with Imperial methods, she had a sneaking suspicion the Corellian was formerly part of the Empire.

So she brazened it out, telling Han just before they queued the door, "Act superior, act like you hate soiling your hands on these lackeys, and let me do the speaking." The helmet modulated her voice a little lower than normal anyway; maybe it would work.

"Special detachment for the scheduled termination," she stated as they entered, throwing all of her will into making these men believe her.

"I was not informed of the change in schedule," the officer stated, while Han did a good job of looking like he was surrounded by filth.

"Do you want to counter orders from _him_?" she demanded with both a warning that it was not a good idea, and that she was terrified of doing just that. She had no idea who the 'him' in question was, but the Empire ran long on male authority figures with iron grasps.

The officer paled. "Carry on," he said. 

The bluff was successful at getting them down to the cell at least, where Leia keyed the door open and saw Organa for the first time in the flesh. It startled her to see someone who looked to be her own age at the heart of a Rebellion, if Artoo was to be believed.

"Oh look, more fun," the prisoner growled, trying to move away from Han.

"Kid, I suggest you be still, if your rescue is going to work," Leia snapped at him, while Han readied an injector. "Shock med; makes you nearly dead for a short time. Obi-Wan Kenobi sent us," she added.

"He came?" Hope flared so strongly that Leia was pushed back, much as she had felt ill on the _Falcon_ when Obi-Wan had staggered.

"Crazy old desert rat? Yeah, he came," Han said. "This better work, farmgirl," he muttered as he pressed the injector against Organa's skin. The boy blanched and then went stock still, slumping heavily. 

Leia moved then, gathering the 'body' by the wrists to drag it away. Han, in the guise of his role as the officer, led the way back out, after discharging one blaster shot carefully.

It almost worked, as they came back toward the exit of the cell block.

Only a stormtrooper noticed there did not appear to be a blast mark on the body.

"Sir? There appears to be no wound," was the last Leia heard before the small room erupted into a blaster fight, with Han's reflexes allowing him to get the first real shot off.

+++++

A running blaster battle in armor, protecting dead weight, was not what Leia would constitute as a good change from her life on Tatooine. The hastily memorized schematic of how to get where they needed to be at least got them to a hiding place long enough to regroup and deliver the antidote to the senator.

"Who are you?" Organa asked in a slurred voice even as Han was shedding the uniform he'd tucked over his regular shirt.

"I'm your pilot," he growled. "And she's crazy."

"We got him out," Leia informed him, stretching her neck. "We can still do this. I've got the deck plans laid out in my head. We go back to your ship, and have the others meet us there."

"Except the whole place is crawling with people who want to kill us now," Han told her.

"We can do it," she stubbornly insisted. "Threepio said Chewbacca is ready for the run as soon as we're close enough. He'll have pre-flight done."

"And we have to hope the old geezer did his part and gets back to the ship," Han pointed out.

"Can we at least get going?" Organa chose to interject. "I need to get Artoo back to the Rebellion, or other planets are going to meet Alderaan's fate!"

"Oh absolutely, your worship," Han said snidely to the boy, refusing to bend to the pain in the eyes that met his. Leia broke up the gaze by shoving past to look out the door. 

"Three of us, one set of armor… I say we ambush one of the searching squads, and then move out as a search team," she offered.

"I'm getting real tired of hiding in those helmets," Han grumped, even as Leia put hers back on.

+++++

Chewbacca roared menacingly as three stormtroopers crowded at the foot of the _Falcon_ , safely hidden up inside with his bowcaster aimed menacingly.

"It's me, Chewie!" Han yelled, as the last group they had dodged realized the trio were acting oddly and started shooting at them.

Chewbacca moved for the cockpit then, reassured, as Han raced up the ramp, Organa on his heels.

Leia paused to give cover fire… and had her attention yanked toward another tableaux. The stormtroopers did too, as the hiss of lightsaber against lightsaber made them take stock of the other fight going on.

Across such a distance, there was no way Obi-Wan could have met Leia's eyes, yet she felt a strong connection, just before Darth Vader, the dreaded Sith Lord of the Emperor, struck the old man down.

Leia wasn't certain what the noise in her throat was, whether grief for losing the last link to her homeworld, or if it was defiance of this entire situation. She aimed precisely and without thought, though, killing the controls on the blast door that separated that dark-caped menace from the bay. It fell, and she picked off two stormtroopers before Organa was yelling at her to get aboard.

She wasn't certain of anything else as the ship shuddered to life and they shot out of the Death Star, only that Organa had offered sympathy unasked, and they still weren't in the clear.

Where her future would go from here was a mass of sandstorms on the horizon.

+++++

"You lost your whole planet," Leia said softly, as they settled into the flight for he Rebellion's secret base, certain they were being followed.

"I have to be strong, for them, and make certain they are the only victims of that thing," he said. "You didn't grow up in the Rebellion, and you just lost a friend," he continued. "Probably more, if I know the Empire and what they would have done to get Artoo back."

"Senator--"

"Luke. Just Luke."

"--I may not have grown up in it, but … I'm there now," Leia said firmly. "Obi-Wan Kenobi was certain my future was not on Tatooine, and I intend to make certain it is a strong one, aimed at ending those monsters."

Luke reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "Then I hope you are a good pilot; we're going to need all the ones we can muster against this thing."

"I'm not bad," was all she said to that.

"Pretty decent shot, too," he praised, as they had both handled the gunner arrays while Han did the fancy flying.

"Like bulls-eyeing womp rats in Beggar's Canyon," she answered to that, with a pang for her long-time friends who had joined her in that activity. Maybe Biggs would be at this secret base, since he had told her he had no stomach for the Empire, his last visit home. That would be one tie back to where Leia had begun.


End file.
